EVERYONE seems to have an opinion about how you should raise your baby, but there are a few pearls of wisdom that were never imparted on me. Here are a few of them:

1) My antenatal coach said that baby poop doesn’t smell. She was lying.

How could this not smell????

2) Babies fart a lot! Since their digestive systems haven’t developed in the first few weeks of their lives, air needs to be burped or farted out. Iggy is impossible to burp, so you guessed it, most of the excess air comes out the other end. So much that he often wakes himself up with a big explosion.

3) Routine flies out the window when your baby arrives, and you’ll soon become a slave to his every need. A shrieking and inconsolable Iggy has been known to transform an enjoyable night with friends eating Thai food to an ear piercing car ride home and an empty belly.

4) Waking up in the middle of the night frantically looking for baby, thinking that you’ve dropped him or that he’s slid under the covers is normal, even though he’s perfectly content and happy in his own room. Other Moms have the same delusional nightmare on a regular basis.

5) Some babies are born with fuzzy hair on their ears and just above their butts. Iggy’s is slowly falling out, but he looked like a wolfman when he was first born.

This is only about 1/3 of the amount of ear hair he has when he was born

6) If you choose to breast feed, you’ll begin to see your boobs as milk making machines and not beautiful chest adornments. Unfortunately it’s all about utility.

7) You’ll soon become fluent in a completely different language you’ve never heard. Terms such as swaddle, buggy, shush, SIDS, capsule and sleep sack will soon be rolling off your tongue.

We had no idea what they were before Iggy was born, but now we can't live without his Merino Kids sleepsack. So much so that we have three of them!

8 However strong your resolve, you WILL become those parents that talk about their baby incessantly.

I thought Iggy was so advanced because he was shaking the rattle. Of course I bragged about it to EVERYONE I came into contact with over the next 5 days.

9) Do anything you can to get sleep at night, especially in the first few weeks. Swaddle, rock, sing, walk, lunge your baby; they’re all fair game options.

10) Regardless of delivery method and the temporary ensuing head dents, your baby is by far cuter than any other out there.